Dissapointed with Sofirn IF25A - need advice

Kinda wonder if your light isn’t in Muggle mode.

In addition to everything else, try cleaning all the springs and unanodized metal contact points with alcohol.

This sounds like a not working FET channel. You should ask the seller for a replacement.

Okay guys, today I ordered Samsung INR21700-40T with 35A discharge current.
We will see…

But to be honest I was hoping that with weaker battery my turbo will be weaker, I didn’t expect it to be non-existent.

I agree. It can’t be a battery issue, because aux leds stay turned on while main leds are off in turbo mode.

I messaged the seller on aliexpress, I hope they will send me another one or refund me full price. :frowning:
I am dissapointed with the light output of this flashlight.

did u try with a 40t battery see if output gets better?

I still more like my old changing color IF25 and theese days I thinking to order Anduril version but i think IF25 is very good 21700 host. Seems the MOSFET transistor of driver is burn out, because second channel doesn’t work at all.

I’m waiting on my 40T battery, should arrive monday/tuesday.
I’ll give updates here to let you guys know if more powerful battery is the answer.

I’ve run both the Sofirn 21700 (4000 mAh) and Molicel P42a on my new IF25a and they both drive the light well at high and turbo. So I don’t think its a battery issue.

I haven’t dug in yet to Anduril though and I have a ramping issue where (after warming up)… the light bumps down to a very low setting almost immediately. Yet, when put back into step mode (or whatever the factory setting is called), the light stays on wherever I leave it. Even turbo keeps up well without a noticeable reduction in lumens despite the light running pretty warm (can’t touch the head bare handed after about a minute).

Might put Sofirn on notice as you work on these issues.

Best of luck with it!

OK guys so I tried 40T battery and nothing changed, my flashlight is broken, I am in contact with Sofirn on Aliexpress and they wanted me to send a video showing the problem.

I don’t have much experience with Aliexpress, can you guys tell me if I should confirm the goods received and open a dispute or leave it as it is?

Nothing wrong with opening a dispute. In the past I regret not doing so with the Ali_express Sofirn folks… but won’t go into that now. It is a formality and nothing more than a notice something is wrong. I’d guess they would make good as it’s all above the board here (and on the BLF record).

You deserve a working light and Sofirn will make good on any verified defect with a clear record of the issues you’ve had. :+1:

Ok guys, I am officialy very dissapointed with Sofirn Company.

I was messaging with them on Aliexpress, I explained them what’s going on, I did send them a videos showing the problems, and after all of that their engineer told me to fully charge battery.
I told them like 3 times that I tried two different batteries (samsung 50E and 40T) and I fully charged both of them.
I suggested that probably FET driver is broken to which their reply was “if the driver is broken then flashlight wouldn’t work”.
I told them that is seems like flashlight works only in regulated mode, to which they replied “my friend, check instructions carefully, this is not a quality problem”.
And that’s it.
They are saying my flashlight is fine, when I clearly can’t use Turbo, Bike flasher, Party Strobe and Tactical Strobe.

Did any of you had similar problem with Sofirn company?

I have buyed so many lights from Sofirn Aliexpress store. Sofirn SP36, C8G, SP10S, SP33. Also order from them spare parts for my SP36. So far I have only one issues when order my SP36, there was a quality marks of anodization. I told them about problem and they answered me that it is not problem for light functionality and in end I just order spare SP36 body tube. Most of time they are responsive. If you can make video of issues just send it to them. If you do not reach a solution to the problem you can directrly open dispute on Aliexpress for refund. Maybe best option for you will be partial refund, because if you want full you must shipping back your product back to China which in most cases is unprofitable.
I have won Aliexpress disputes many times for very cheap product so Aliexpress protection is very good at all.

Edit 7/7/2020: Funtastic kindly shared Anduril links with me and today I finally dug into Anduril. The IF25a is acting normal now and after testing tonight it is clear I needed to “reset” the temp sensor which was way off from the factory. I still need to work on (correctly) setting the smooth ramping upper limit though. This light (in summer right now) is too warm in the bare hand to run on high for more than a minute or two. And turbo really heats up faster yet!!!

I see this being a nice SMALL EDC for my day hunt pack this winter (replacing my Sofirn SP-10, another great little light)! It’s a smaller pack so smaller lights leave room for (another) beer for the tree stand. And if I get cold hands I can whip this out, turn on turbo and warm up my hands FAST :blush:

Definitely LOVE this IU (thank you TK) :+1: :beer:

Temperature offset is common problem with Anduril flashlights. I don’t know why they didn’t make factory temperature calibration before sending flashlight. The problem is with MCU temperature sensor which is very inaccurate and have big tolerances between MCUs. From Attiny85 datasheet “Typically, the measurement accuracy after a single temperature calibration is ±10°C, assuming calibration at room temperature. Better accuracies are achieved by using two temperature points for calibration.”
I can’t say that ±10°C accuracy is best at all, and that it is after calibration.

Maybe you can help me understand what’s going on with my IF25a. This is my first time playing with Anduril but I’m confident that I understand how to configure it.

I set the thermal limit as low as possible because I want to be more comfortable pocketing it without putting it in lockout or muggle mode most of the time. I set the ambient temperature as accurately as I can with a digital thermometer. After the two blinks I click just once so I believe it should be limited at 31C. When I put it in turbo, It doesn’t seem to ramp down aggressively even though I set an aggressive limit. The light allowed it self to 57C which is hot enough that I’m uncomfortable holding it and struggle to click the button to turn it off. I sat it on a desk in front of me and just let turbo ride as I found this thread and made this post which is taking maybe 5 minutes. I just checked and it was clearly ramping down and measured at 41C. I wish the limiter could be more aggressive and keep my light out of the fire zone without resorting to lockout or muggle mode.

You could set a higher temp for the first setting and see how it behaves

After several attempts to set a ramp ceiling on my IF25a that didn’t cook my hand…

I settled on 40 clicks DOWN from max in the ramp configuration (in smooth ramping). So the first blinks in the configuration are for the LOW end limit of the ramp. I clicked once for the “moon” (lowest) it will go. Then the next blinks come up running through the cycle, and are for the upper limit. I tried 20, 30 and finally 40 clicks where I left it for the test tonight.

I went out just 30 minutes ago, and waked around about 3 minutes on this upper ramp setting. It got pretty warm with the head of the light touchable, but pretty hot. The body was plenty warm by then too. Just at the edge of comfortable to me in the bare hand.

The IF25a was JUST bright enough at that setting tonight (40 clicks down) that I felt it was usable for your basic walk around the garden (looking for armadillos to “remove” from digging up the whole place lately- I have another light on my 22 rifle when needed there) :wink: I also confirmed a double-click DID go to up from the ramping range “high” level- instantly to turbo.

I LOVE this little monster and it’s ability to really render a nice, even 4k beam. Still… I’d grab my Sofirn SF-33 (rev #2) for anything more than a few minutes out on a summer night. It has a nice wide beam too (but the IF25a is wider) and it runs on a good 5500mAh 26650 battery and gets out there pretty good throw wise too. Of course, it doesn’t fit as nicely into my lanky gym shorts pocket as the IF25a does, but it fits the hand nicely and it’s a trade-off for weight Vs heat.

I also love our stash of about five Sofirn SP-10s which I keep 10500 batteries in (instead of NmHs or Alkaleaks). That battery really drives those little lights nicely and they are great for walks. They are more blue (as the SF-33 also is), but not so bad you can tell much when outside trying to see around in the pitch black. If I had a true EDC light, it would probably be the SP-10 or something that size as it fits ANYWHERE but on a keychain.

I asked my same question on Reddit and toykeeper responding saying that Sofirn is basically using an old old demo version of anduril designed for the SP36 on all of their lights. The thermal config has been re-written several times since then. So basically they only sell lights with old buggy firmware and ignore the new updates. I wonder if it’s possible to update the SP36 and IF25A because they are my first two lights and I like them but I thought they’d be the last I would need. I’m unhappy with this temperature limit bug.